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Fig. 1.
Categories of discussion arguments
arguments used in the discussion (exemplary for the German region), organized into
six categories.
Within these categories, discussion arguments can furthermore be subdivided into
“pro's” and “con's”. For clarification, consider category 3 (“financing”): Oftentimes,
skepticism about the survival of a project is expressed. Some members suspected that
funding may be invested in a project that will not achieve the desired effects and will
then be abandoned. In opposition to this argument is the notion that due to the own
contribution of the applicant, she/he participates in both success and failure and hence
has an own interest in the survival of the project (line 31 in figure 1). Not all catego-
ries equally provide “pro” and “con” arguments. For instance, when talking about the
“image of the region”, the assembly members argue widely positively.
A similar scheme of discussion arguments and their categories has been deployed
for the Swedish case study. It also accounts for the fact that the discussions are struc-
tured quite differently from the German case. While in the latter, the entire assembly
exchanges arguments and then makes a decision, in Swedish assembly first discusses
the projects in the three subgroups (political, economic, social) of members and each
of those suggests a vote. A following joint discussion then prepares for the final vote.
A further result of the observation was that the types of arguments that appeared in
the discussion were dependant on the category of the project discussed. For instance,
in the German case road improvement projects were even approved without discus-
sion. For the Swedish stakeholders however, road improvements were not included in
their understanding of regional development, which is why such projects are not even
admitted to the discussion.
3.3
Results of the Qualitative Stakeholder Interviews
Because functioning and trust based networks are considered important in communic-
ative planning processes, the interviews focused on the construction, the development
